AMERICAS

POISONBY

ALEXANDER V. M IRANDA

WE STANDDIVIDED

UNION-NONUNION, OLD-YOUNG, RICH-POOR, LIBERAL-CONSERVATIVE, MINORITY-

MAJORITY, BLUE STATE-RED STATE….AND ON AND ON IT GOES, TEARING APART

OUR NATION. WHAT HAS BECOME OF THE “UNITED” STATES OF AMERICA AND

OF “E PLURIBUS UNUM?” ARE THESE IMPORTANT PRINCIPLES GONE FOREVER?

The recent union demonstrations are just the latest manifestation of how divided America has become. The working people in the private sector resent having to subsidize higher wages and lucrative benefits negotiated by public sector unions. Working people resent the redistri-bution of their hard earned wealth too. It’s not that they don’t feel for the poor. I t ’s that they do not feel “r ich.” The very rich—many on Wall Street—somehow seem to stay “above i t a l l” and col lect their mi l l ion dol lar bonuses and retreat to the Hamptons.

The demonstrations highlight another divide—the liberal (Democrat) vs. conservative (Republican) split. Many Americans who cons ider themselves “centrists” or “moderates” are rapidly fall ing over into the more conservative side of the divide, due to the excessive cost, reach and size of government. This ideological debate has ebbed and flowed since our founding fathers, but at least John Adams and Thomas Jef-ferson respected each other enough to keep i t a civ i l debate.

WE STANDDIVIDED

words by John Mariotti / Forbes

PERCENT AGE OF CHILDREN YOUNGER THAN 18

YEARS OLD LIVING IN POOR HOUSEHOLDS, 2009.

No one in government, including the occupant of the White House has yet had the courage to tackle the real budget problems: the big four accounts, Social Securi ty, Medicare, Medicaid and Defense. Without reduct ions in spending in these four, there is no hope for re turn ing Amer ica to a ba lanced budget o r reduc ing the de f ic i t . President Obama is so busy strategiz ing how he wi l l campaign for re-election in 2012 that he will do everything he can to “kick this can” down the road into the future.

The divide between the “haves and have-nots” cont inues to grow. One of the reasons is based on economic contribution and value. | Another is the continuing dependence driven by government largesse. A third may be that the “trickle down effect” doesn’t . Why should anyone go out and look for a job, start low, work hard and work their way up when they can sit at home collecting endless unemployment and using food stamps. With Obamacare, they will also get medical insurance subsidized by the same group of working Americans.

Finally, the young-old divide will create tension between two groups: the baby boomers and the echo boomers . Both groups are huge, over 75 mill ion strong. The former worked their entire lives, contrib-uting to Social Security and Medicare from their paychecks and they feel “entitled” to collect the benef i ts in their ret i rement years. The non-retired group once outnumbered ret i rees substant ia l ly and as those ratios have shrunk to fewer and fewer non-retirees per retiree, the problems have grown.

INFANT MORTALITY

When you add the mass media influence, which is to fuel the divisions in its own way, the problem is downright frightening. Media bias in Amer-ica is virtually out of control . Distort ion is rampant. Strong posi t ions are one thing; blatant ly misleading report ing (or non-report ing) and inflammatory journalism is another entirely. Just look at the polarization shown in the above data. In spite of other polls critical of Obama and his administrat ion’s “unsat isfactory” performance, 2/3 of Democrats would vote for him again. On the other hand, 4 of 5 Republicans would vote for any other Republican—without even knowing who it might be. I could fi l l the page with similar da ta to prove the degree of polar iza-tion and “divide” in our country, but you know it well. Just watch CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS, and NBC and you wi l l see i t c lear ly. Ditto for reading the Wall Street Journal vs. N. Y. Times.

The current public sector union debacle is the ultimate is how wrong things have become.Belligerent, ranting demonstrat ions by protestors - many of them “imported and transported to the scene in busloads.” This alone is an incendiary act ion brought about by power fu l ou ts ide influences—fanning the unrest into a media-driven frenzy.

Lawmakers fled the state to stall the legis lat ive process and are now upset for being left out of the vote ( d u e t o t h e i r d e c i s i o n t o r u n a w a y ) . In any other venue this kind of behavior would be punishable: Military deserters (AWOL) are court martialed; school truants are expelled, cor-porate absentees are terminated, and escapees who leave the country are extradited. What should these f leeing lawmakers face?

Sensational polarized report ing has been heightened by over-the-top rhetoric (even a U. S. Senator, Sherrod Brown, D, OH, who later apolo-gized) likening American governors to Hitler, Mubarak, et. al. This is so far out of l ine that there is no criticism strong enough. Both sides have gone too far. The extreme reactions provoked extreme behavior.

Where a reasoned debate might have led to compromises, the positions are now entrenched. The divides are not narrowing; they are growing, and threaten to split America asunder. Elections clear ly mean l i t t le to those who thrive on the div ided America. This is a terr ible fate for a major i ty-rule democracy.

INFANT MORTALITY

Demonstrators bused into other states from afar try to pressure local lawmakers. These “Mobs” that return our country to the condition that unions were formed to prevent. Except now that the tables are turned, and the “rich unions” don’t want to allow the “poor masses”—taxpay-ers—to exercise their democratic rights—to elect legislators to carry out their policies. Meanwhile, lobbyists on K-street in Washington shame-lessly collect huge sums to try influencing Congress hi ther and yon.

What is America becoming? I fear for its very existence unless some-one in authority reins this in. Unfortunately, there is only one person in the position to do that—Barack Obama. He has shown litt le interest in stopping the very kind of act ions he condoned as a Chicago com-munity organizer, and by the now defunct Acorn, and by s imi lar, but newly named organizat ions that have replaced i t .

This is rapidly becoming a terrible chapter in history, and perhaps, a re-enactment of the how the American Revolution and the Civil War be-gan. Most ironic, no, tragic—is that a black man is finally in the White House, and he is presiding over this one—and doing litt le or nothing about it. He should be ashamed.

John Mariotti is an internationally known executive and an award-winning author. In his recent novel, The Chinese Conspiracy he merges an exciting fictional thril ler with a factual reality of America’s risk from Cyber-Attacks. (www.thechinesecomspiracy.com) His last book, The Complexity Crisis was one of 2008’s Best Business Books and also one of 2008’s Best Books for Small Business. Mariotti does Keynote speeches, serves on corporate boards and is a consultant/advisor to companies. He can also be reached at

w w w . m a r i o t t i . n e t

THIS IS RAPIDLY BECOMING A TER-RIBLE CHAPTER IN HISTORY, AND PERHAPS, A RE-ENACTMENT OF THE HOW THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THE CIVIL WAR BEGAN

THAT TWO-TIMING BLACK WALNUT

words by Walter Shapiro / New Republic / NPR

Herman Cain’s recent stumbles over substantive issues have a way of making Rick Perry seem like the Stephen Hawking of politics. In the midst of a softball CNN interview last week, he appeared to abandon his no-exceptions anti-abortion stance. The former pizza magnate also said that he hypothetically might swap terrorists held on Guantanamo for an Ameri-can soldier—and then embarrassingly backtracked during the Las Vegas debate. Asked about his foreign policy orientation on Meet the Press, a baffled Cain replied, “I’m not familiar with the neo-conservative move-ment.” And listening to Cain constantly struggle to explain why his regres-sive 9-9-9 plan would not raise taxes for most Americans is a reminder of the punch line of an old joke: “Do you believe me or your own eyes?”

Small wonder, therefore, that the likely story arc for Cain is that doubts about his candidacy continue to multiply until he is on a glide path for a pr imet ime host ing s lot on Fox News. As Joshua Green reported in Business Week, Cain is careful ly keeping his post-campaign opt ions open by continuing his paid speeches (“I have not raised my prices”) and hawking his latest autobiography, This Is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House.

This is how president ia l vett ing tradi t ional ly works. The press pack pounces on the logical fa l lacies in a candidate’s posi t ions and the shakiness of his resume. Party elites and top fundraisers then decide, i f they have not already, that any candidate subjected to this kind o f non- ideo log ica l media assau l t i s une lec tab le . And eventua l l y voters—especially when the calendar moves beyond activist-dominated Iowa—get the message that they are try ing to elect a president and not merely thumbing their noses at the establishment.

YEAH HE’S GOT SKELETONS BUT WAS HE EVER REALLY QUALIFIED?

SEXUAL HARASSMENT AT WORKSEXUAL HARASSMENT AT WORKIn 2010, there were 11,717 charges of sexual harassment in the United States.

HOWEVER IT IS ESTIMATED THAT ONLY 5-15 % OF VICTIMS REPORT HARASSMENT

HERMAIN CAIN HAS illustrious predecessors—other outlandish Repub-lican presidential contenders who have had their Icarus moments in the sun. At the end of 1987, Newsweek ballyhooed televangelist Pat Robert-son’s “invisible army” in a story headlined, “Is It Time to Take Pat Serious-ly?” After Pat Buchanan narrowly won the 1996 New Hampshire primary, a newspaper columnist named (whoops!) Walter Shapiro declared, “He should be considered the presumptive frontrunner.” Twelve years ago this month, New York Times columnist William Safire predicted that flat-tax troubadour Steve Forbes would give George W. Bush “a run for both of their money.” And an October 1999 Washington Post story reported that the Bush camp “has been almost obsessed with Forbes’s candidacy.”

But for all the news-magazine covers (which mattered back in the 20th century) and front-page headlines, none of those prior improbable can-didates ever came close to leading in the national polls. In fact, none of them ever won a major primary or caucus, aside from Buchanan’s brief reign as the uncrowned king of New Hampshire. Enter the Herminator stage right waving his 9-9-9 tax plan.

Cain has scored above 25 percent in a string of October national polls and has topped Mitt Romney in several of them. Despite the snickers from the pundit pack (myself included) about the presidential credentials of a former pepperoni peddler turned motivational speaker, Cain is crest-ing. It is easy to tick off glib explanations for his dramatic ascent: the Rick Perry implosion; the need for the anti-Romney vote to go somewhere; his humor and genial unflappability in the early debates; his compelling life story; and the obsession of conservative true believers with cockamamie tax plans. Throw in the desire of Republican voters to demonstrate that they believe in a color-blind society as fervently as Democrats did in 2008 in embracing Barack Obama. But none of that diminishes the historic nature of Cain’s poll vault—or the unique political context of 2012 that’s making it possible. Aiding Cain—and potentially defying past elect ion cycles—is the fact that Republican voters are highly skeptical of the me-dia: 72 percent of conservative Republicans and 62 percent of all Repub-licans believe that there is “a lot” of bias in news coverage, according to a national survey by the Pew Research Center. Anger at elected officials is the new normal. It is stunning that seven out of eight voters disapprove of the way that Congress is doing its job. Adding to this mixture is the fact that Republican voters—judging from every poll in this political season—would prefer not to nominate Mitt Romney. But the Anybody But Romney forces keep struggling with that ancient rule of politics and boxing: You can’t beat somebody with nobody.

This volatile combination is what makes the rising and rais ing Cain pol l numbers so worrisome. The first active black candidate to have a remote chance of winning a Republican nomination may be shockingly ill prepared for the presidency, but Cain is certainly not an extremist out of the Robert-son and Buchanan playbooks. He is a cheerful conservative in the Ronald Reagan mold. Actually, Cain resembles Reagan during his GE pitchman phase—a talented speaker with scant experience in the political arena. But Reagan’s strength as a president flowed directly from his later experi-ence of two terms as California governor and two failed presidential races.

Despite the latest flap over abortion, it does not take a huge leap to imag-ine Cain winning in Iowa, where he leads in the latest statewide poll. A follow-up victory for Cain in the South Carol ina pr imary would also be conceivable. After that, starting with the Florida primary at the end of Janu-ary, voters will mostly judge the candidates based on their performances on television screens. And make no mistake—Cain is a great performer.

Walter Shapiro, a PoliticsDaily.com columnist, has covered the last eight presidential

campaigns as a columnist and political reporter. Along the way, he has worked for two

newspapers (USA Today and the Washington Post), two news weeklies (Time and News-

week), two monthlies (Esquire and the Washington Monthly) and two online magazines

(Salon and Slate). http://www.waltershapiro.com/

GENDER BREAKDOWNGENDER BREAKDOWNOf those 11,717 sexual harassment charges in the workplace.

WHICH YIELDED$48,400,000.OO

IN NON-L IT IGAT ION MONETARY BENIF ITS TO V ICT IMS. THAT AMOUNT BREAKS

D O W N T O 4 , 1 3 0 . 0 0 P E R C A S E O F S E X U A L H A R A S S M E N T. WHEN FACTORING

L IT IGAT ION AGAINST EMPLOYER, THE AMOUNT CAN EAS ILY R E A C H I N T O T H E

M I L L I O N S P E R C A S E A S T H E R E I S N O C A P O N T H E A M O U N T A N E M P L O Y E E

CAN SUE FOR SEXUAL HARASSMENT.

CAIN IS A GREAT PERFORMER

THE POETRY OF

MICHELE BACHMANNheart warming quotes for a cold winters night

“I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ Listen to the American people because the Ameri-can people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.”

“Well what I want them to know is just l ike, John Wayne was from Water-loo, Iowa. That’s the kind of spirit that I have, too”

“I will tell you that I had a mother last night come up to me here in Tampa, Florida, after the debate. She told me that her litt le daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter.”

“Why should I go and do something like that? But the Lord says, ‘Be submissive wives; you are to be submissive to your husbands.”

“I FIND IT INTERESTING THAT IT WAS

BACK IN THE 1970S THAT THE SWINE

FLU BROKE OUT UNDER ANOTHER, THEN

UNDER ANOTHER DEMOCRAT PRESIDENT,

JIMMY CARTER. I’M NOT BLAMING THIS

ON PRESIDENT OBAMA, I JUST THINK IT’S

AN INTERESTING COINCIDENCE.”

“I wish the American media would take a great look at the views

of the people in Congress and find out: Are they pro-America or

anti-America?”

“Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.”

“If we took away the minimum wage -- if conceivably it was gone -- we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.”

“But we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States. ... I think it is high time that we recognize the contribution of our forbearers who worked tirelessly - men like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished in the country.”

“Before we get started, let’s all say ‘Happy Birthday’ to Elvis Presley today.” (on the anniversery of his death)

Daniel Kurtzman

words by Jeremy Gerrard / Daily Local News Delaware

TEA PARTY

SCIENCEVS.

TEA PARTY

SCIENCEVS.

Climate change controversy was the discussion topic Tuesday evening at a West Chester Tea Party meeting.More than 50 people crammed into a room at the West Goshen Township Building to hear a presentation from David Legates, professor of climatology at the University of Delaware and associate Delaware state climatologist. A longtime opponent of popular climate theories, Legates said he is skeptical about the impact humans have on climate.

“Every day the federal government gets bigger, reaches into your pockets and your life,” said a Tea Party representative introducing Legates.

Members claimed the government spent $8.8 billion on climate issues in 2010, and they pondered whether global warming was simply another con proponent scientists have been inflated or are only a sampling of the larger

climate picture. “Hopefully you’ll get to see what the science really is,” Leg-ates said. “Is our climate changing? Are we to blame? It’s changing because it always has changed and should be changing.”

Legates did not argue against all human causes behind climate issues, but he said the human impact was not environmental and is in some cases a product of land development, such as in the case of increased flooding.

Flooding, droughts, sea level and hurricanes were among the bigger weather topics Legates tackled, and the claims made in Al Gore’s climate documen-tary “An Inconvenient Truth.” Legates examined the claims and said he found these were natural cycles or segments of long-term trends.

In a br ie f ques t ion-and-answer por t ion o f the program, some aud i -ence members cha l lenged Legates ’ c la ims and credent ia l s , a sk i ng for proof of some of the statistics he proposed. Richard Whiteford, an environmental consultant from Chester County, was Legates’ most vocal opposition.In response, other audience members, upset by Whiteford’s accusat ions, exclaimed, “That’s garbage!” and “Shut this guy up!” The meeting concluded with many unanswered ques t ions f rom both sides, but without further confrontation.

GLOBAL WARMING - BELIEVE THAT IT IS HAPPENING

GLOBAL WARMING - DON’T NEED MORE INFORMATION

EVOLUTION - BELIEVE HUMANS EVOLVED FROM ANIMALS

su r vey by George Mason Universi ty & Yale center for c l imate communicat ion

THE RULES TO BE A REAL PATRIOTDELUS IONAL PR INC IPALS OF A CLUELESS AND UNREAL IST IC POL I T ICAL MOVEMENT

• Illegal Aliens Are Here Illegally.

• Pro-Domestic Employment Is Indispensable.

• Stronger Military Is Essential.

• Special Interests Eliminated.

• Gun Ownership Is Sacred.

• Government Must Be Downsized.

• National Budget Must Be Balanced.

• Deficit Spending Will End.

• Bail-Out And Stimulus Plans Are Illegal.

• Reduce Personal Income Taxes A Must.

• Reduce Business Income Taxes Are Mandatory.

• Political Offices Available To Average Citizens.

• Intrusive Government Stopped.

• English As Core Language Is Required.

• Traditional Family Values Are Encouraged.nanswered q u e s t i o n s

f r o m b o t h sides, but without further confrontation.

NON-NEGOTIABLE CORE BELIEFS OF THE TEA PARTY